


Jealous

by codenamecynic



Series: The Swordmaster's Son [4]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Established Relationship, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, Jealousy, M/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 01:27:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21153317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codenamecynic/pseuds/codenamecynic
Summary: Watching Taliesin flirt with another man leaves Cort struggling to reconcile the way he feels with what he thinks he can reasonably expect.Takes place around year 20 of 'The Swordmaster's Son'.





	Jealous

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vhaerauning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vhaerauning/gifts), [Fionavar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fionavar/gifts), [Dakoyone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dakoyone/gifts), [bettydice (BettyKnight)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BettyKnight/gifts).

> Exploring things from Cort's POV at the behest of our beloved DM. If you're following [The Swordmaster's Son](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15688893/chapters/36454428), this story is set in year 20, a specific reference to this events discussed in this scene: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15688893/chapters/36464091

They’re back in the brothel. Together, but… not.

It’s a foolish charade, and the worst part is that he’s not even certain that it’s necessary. For anyone else and it wouldn’t be - relations between men is not an unknown concept, if frowned upon in the highest circles he’s subject to. It’s all about bloodlines, those all important, mean-nothing things - and part of him doesn’t _care_, is so tired of caring, but that part is small and its voice is weak.

Taliesin can afford to flaunt himself and his passions, because ultimately Taliesin will leave. Cort will stay in the place that was built for him. He knows its confines well.

They never chafe more than on nights like these, though. Nights where they are away from the estate, but never far enough that it surrenders its hold, restraining even distantly. He never forgets who he is, quiet and solitary in a house full of drunkards and whores with a single glass of wine he plans to nurse all night - unlike Taliesin who immediately becomes another person, one of any dozen characters, lax and easy and smiling.

He seems happier when he’s pretending to be anyone other than himself, and Cort wonders sometimes if he shouldn’t just be different then.

…only he doesn’t want Taliesin to be different. He wants Taliesin as he is, difficult and wild and somehow still so horribly pure, even after everything. That he is the first thing that Cort has ever truly wanted to take for himself, something for him and him alone - that’s hardly Taliesin’s fault. 

He’d wager the brilliant idiot doesn’t even know. It’s not like Cort’s told him. It’s not like he’ll ever tell him.

That thought is wearying, the bars on his cage shrinking closer until he has to do something to distract himself from them. Softly though, quietly; he takes a turn around the room.

Inevitably it brings him back to Taliesin.

He’s flirting, like he always is, his posture loose and effortless where he reclines against the bar, arms spread wide and elbows planted, leaning. It arches his upper body backward, hips forward, his shirt undone and pulled askew just enough to bare the top of his chest. The dim lighting flatters the lines of him, the slope of his collarbones, the column of his throat right up to his scruffy chin and grinning mouth, one corner cocked higher than the other, teasing.

Cort is still not sure if Taliesin does these things on purpose; if he’s trying or if there’s something in him just built to find the light, to show himself to best advantage. Or if maybe it’s just because Cort wants him so much, so extremely, uncomfortably covetous that he can’t even stand to look at him sometimes.

That kind of sentiment is beneath him. It isn’t his place to mandate what Taliesin can and can’t do with his body. He’s free to fuck whomever he wants, whenever he wants, as openly as he wants. And even if Cort hates it, he’ll hate it quietly, because he knows full well that the only thing he has to offer Taliesin is subterfuge.

Even he’s smart enough to know that Taliesin can’t belong to someone who is going to keep him a secret. He needs too much, he won’t survive it, and Cort has been concerned with Taliesin’s survival for far too long to easily put that aside, even for his own desires.

Especially for his own desires. He’s selfish, but nobody else has to know that.

He stops a ways away, setting himself near a throng of other young men of their acquaintance so he can feign amusement at their heckling, half an ear for trouble and the rest of his attention on the man Taliesin is with as he draws closer, leaning into Taliesin’s space. 

Not a prostitute; a mercenary maybe, someone rough and grinning like humor with a sharp edge. Exactly the kind of thing that Taliesin can’t leave alone, literally flirting with danger like a moth daring a flame to kiss its wings. Shorter than Taliesin but thicker, broad shoulders like a bull and arms to match, blond hair short-cropped at the sides. Neat enough, but clothing of middling value; worn, but with boots in good repair. A professional then, but not anyone Cort knows.

That’s fine. He isn’t sure it would be better if it was someone he knew, though maybe that would somewhat lessen the erstwhile desire he has to lure the man outside into the darkness to snap his neck. The hand that finds its way to the collar of Taliesin’s shirt makes his skin crawl, itching to move, to act, to do something. It feels very much like tension brewing on the edge of a fight, the shivering anticipation, only-

It’s safe enough. He’s just being jealous. 

_Jealous._ Such an ugly word, cold and sharp like thorned vines that worm their way into the cracks of stone to widen them, tearing a mountainside apart inch by inch. It makes him want to do outrageous things, and he doesn’t know what it means yet that he only wants to do them to Taliesin. He doesn’t need anyone else to know.

He could do it, too. He could march across the room and slide into the gap between the blond stranger and his best friend - _“best friend”_ \- whisper a demand in Taliesin’s ear and have him in some backroom on his knees in a matter of moments, no longer than it would take for money to change hands to borrow the space. That smiling mouth would smile only at him, would open for him, would take his cock in deep while those pretty gray eyes fixed him with that look that kills him every time. Like he’s the sun, the source of all light and warmth in the world; like Taliesin has been cold his entire life, empty, waiting to be filled.

Cort could have that too. Anywhere, any way he wants; Taliesin’s made that clear. Beneath him, astride him, on his hands and knees with his face against the sheets, he’s _Cort’s._ In those moments there is no one else, and Taliesin can bend and bend and bend until he breaks, will beg for his touch, his mouth, his cock, will whisper Cort’s name like a prayer, will say anything Cort wants him to say, tell him anything he wants to hear. Be _his _\- at least until they open the door.

That’s when it all ends, where the outside world kills it dead, and if Taliesin ever said, ever let on that it hurt him half as much as it hurts Cort sometimes, he would never be able to let this continue. Because Cort can’t make him promises, can’t offer things that he doesn’t have to give. He thinks Taliesin knows - or at least, he doesn’t argue.

Maybe Cort is just too selfish to take a closer look at that, but they move according to a clock that is ticking down. Eventually Taliesin will return to sea, and Cort will return to the life Cort’s been given. That will be that, and this will end. If he can’t change it, can’t offer an alternative, a solution, what right does he have to make demands?

Taliesin does not belong to him. Taliesin does not belong to anyone.

He leaves it alone, lets this room see the back of him as he moves to the next, leaving Taliesin behind with his new friend to flirt or find a place in private. Cort will be here when he’s ready to leave, nursing that single glass of wine. Just like every other time.


End file.
